Traditionally, broadcast television was only distributed via cable, satellite, or terrestrial systems. Today, with the increase in Internet connection speeds, advancements in technology, the increase in total number of users online, and the decrease in connection costs, it has become increasingly more common to find television content, accessible freely over the Internet. Moreover, new Internet-only television content (e.g., content not distributed via cable, satellite, or terrestrial systems) has appeared. The widespread use of digital subscriber line (DSL) and the ever-increasing bandwidth capabilities offered by industry innovation (e.g., asymmetrical digital subscriber line 2 (ADSL2), very high bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL), etc.) have provided an ideal backdrop for new mechanisms for distributing multimedia streams, including, but not limited to, live television (e.g., Internet Protocol (IP) television (IPTV)), also referred to as multicasting, as well as stored multimedia, such as, for example, content on demand (e.g., interactive video, interactive gaming, video on demand (VOD)).
One of the primary barriers to wider adoption of broadband as a means for delivering multimedia content is streaming technology, both in terms of quality and cost to providers. From a quality standpoint, end client IPTV and media systems delivered over broadband, Ethernet/IP, wireline and/or wireless networks typically require a time-based buffer to be loaded at the end client system in order to prevent picture loss and/or degradation during channel change and playout. However, whenever a request for a channel change is initiated by an end client, the buffer must be cleared and subsequently filled with streaming data from the new channel. In the case of IPTV, this can result in dithering and/or a blank screen during startup while the buffer is being filled. For users who engage in “channel surfing” or who otherwise rapidly switch between channels of multimedia content, the momentary delay in delivering channel content can be particularly undesirable.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved techniques for distributing multimedia content over a network which does not suffer from one or more of the problems exhibited by conventional multimedia distribution methodologies.